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Saturday, 6 August 2016

A Visit To Prague With A Six Year Old

Last year Prague welcomed 6,605,7776 visitors, with 5.714.835 of them coming from worldwide and 890,941 visiting from inside the Czech Republic. A further 2 million visitors came from abroad and visited other destinations in the Czech Republic. We became a statistic this year when we visited Prague alongside all the other foreign visitors.

Prague has been a destination that I have wanted to visit for many years now and finally we made it there as part of our InterRail visit across Europe. We booked into Hostel Cortina, which was a tram ride away from the train station and you simply buy a ticket and hop on until the ninth stop. Then when you get off you see a side road and there is the hostel.

The hostel was very welcoming, BUT not ideal if you have a child with you as we found out. It is very noisy late at night with adults acting very childishly and screaming and shouting, with no consideration for other guests. So if you are there as a party weekend, then this hostel is perfect for you. We booked into a triple room and had our own private bathroom.

A few doors down from the hostel was a tourist information office that is open Monday to Friday. We popped in there and we were given loads of information of what to do whilst we stayed in Prague. We were given advice on how to get to the main places to visit, but we still kept getting lost. We wanted to go to Wenceslas Square but we were disappointed with what we found, I think we had imagined a square with old fashioned buildings and beautiful scenery, instead we were welcomed with an oblong street lined with Americanised coffee shops and restaurants. It was too commercialised – sadly. After we had found this we carried on walking down the street to head towards the old town square, and find the town hall. Now this was worth the visit to Prague because it was just as we had imagined. It was beautiful old buildings and the Town Hall is well worth a visit. We have written about it here, so you can add it to your itinerary if you visit Prague soon.

The transport system in Prague can be difficult to understand, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to buy tickets for the trams and buses, but you can pop into some shops and buy the tickets or ask at the Tourist Information. You can find details of the tourist information’s here. You will see at some bus stops that you can buy tickets from a machine, it is always worth walking down a stop or two to find the machine because if you are caught without a ticket you can be fined 800 czk (about £25) or if you don’t have the money, you can be put in the jail until you pay. They do not take lightly to tourists trying to beat the system and get out of paying for their transport system.

We did a hop on hop off bus tour, so that is a good way to get to see the city, Well I say a good way, but I mean convenient. The buses have to drive over cobbled streets and tram lines, so it isn’t the most comfortable of journeys. Add that with the driver weaving in and out of the traffic and you have something resembling the old Playstation game ‘’Crazy Taxi’’. But it was a good way to see the city and it included a trip along the river.

We also took a walk along the river where Tilly was thrilled to see a ‘Botel’ called Matylda, I think she even wants to visit Prague again to stay on the boat!

We had a good visit to Prague, the beer is cheaper than coke, so it is easy to understand why people go there for hen and stag parties.